


the point of all great loves

by rainny_days



Series: and they keep not letting go [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Domesticity, First Kiss, Fluff, IF JONNY ISN'T GONNA GIVE US SOFT COTTAGE CONTENT THEN I GUESS I HAVE TO, M/M, Minor Angst, Mutual Pining, Sharing a Bed, and that one thing is dumb gays, but mostly just cute shit, cottage shennanigans, i have (1) thing i can write and i just write that 15000 times, if you've read anything by me you know what to expect, oh my god there was only one bed, set between 159 and 160, spoilers for 160
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 04:34:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21247538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainny_days/pseuds/rainny_days
Summary: In the moment that the two of them had stumbled out of the Lonely, hand in hand and gasping in the musty, stale air of the Panopticon, Jon had thought about turning to Martin and saying it, taking advantage of what little time they had before everything inevitably began to catch up with them. He had been half-turned towards him, the words stuttering up his throat -there’s about a seventy percent chance that we’re going to die in the next few hours, so I just wanted to tell you that I love you, present tense, future tense, forever, probably- but then Basira had stumbled in, covered in soot and blood, and time had started again.After that, there never seemed to be a good time. There were always hunters to watch out for, friends to find, bags to pack, and before Jon had quite caught his breath, he and Martin were being shoved in Georgie’s old sudan, being texted clipped, efficient instructions from Basira, driving out of London, into Scotland.And- here they were, weeks away from the Lonely, and Jon still hasn’tsaidanythingMartin and Jon, in the weeks before the end of the world.





	the point of all great loves

**Author's Note:**

> lottie was talking about soft jm cottage content and next thing i knew i had 2.5k of meaningless pre-160 fluff, so blame her if you want to blame anyone
> 
> title from taz:b, because what's a better podcast fic title than a quote from another podcast?

“Jon, look!” There is a part of Jon wants to tell Martin off when he leans into Jon’s shoulder, warn him against obscuring Jon’s line of sight while he’s driving, craning barely out of the corners of his peripheries in order to point out the driver’s side window. But Martin’s sweater is soft where it brushes against Jon’s neck, and his breath is warm near his skin, and Jon finds himself unable to say anything.

Martin seems utterly oblivious to Jon’s sudden drop in coherency - though, considering that Jon finds himself like this more often than not around him, he might just think that this is Jon in his normal state. He turns to Jon, smiling in a way that makes Jon’s hands grip harder on the steering wheel. “There are so _ many _,” he marvels, eyes bright and dangerously mesmerizing.

Jon makes a sound of confusion, and Martin laughs a little, gesturing again to the driver’s window. Jon takes a glance towards his movement, seeing that, yes, there is a great number of cattle milling in the fields that they’re driving by.

“...yes?” he says, slowly. He looks at how excited Martin is again, and tries to modulate his own voice to match. “They’re- quite something.”

“That one has _ such _ long fur!” Jon isn’t sure whether the exhilaration in Martin’s voice is more due to the fact they’re out of the Institute - for the first time in _ months _ , for Martin, and only slightly less for Jon - or if he’s just that excited about _ cows _ , of all things. It stings, a little, that Jon isn’t quite able to tell, yet, doesn’t know Martin enough to know without thinking about it, but somehow he thinks he’ll learn. He _ wants _ to learn. 

He’s brought out of his reverie when Martin suddenly stills against his shoulder, pulls back slightly. Jon looks at him, startled, and sees Martin’s face flicker through a series of expressions, before a quiet kind of embarrassment finds its place in his features.

“Is something wrong?” Jon asks, forcing himself to look back towards the road, but still unable to help himself from glancing sidelong at his companion.

Martin smiles, a dim imitation of his previous grin. “I- sorry, I was probably distracting you, you were _ driving _\- I’ll stop-”

“Don’t!” Jon’s voice is sharp even to his own ears, and he winces. “I don’t think you’re distracting,” he lies. “It’s- nice, to hear your voice. I-” he takes a breath. “I like it. Really.”

“Oh,” Martin says, strangled. “That’s- okay.”

When Jon looks over at him this time, Martin is staring back.

* * *

It isn’t as if Jon doesn’t _ want _to talk about it.

In the moment that the two of them had stumbled out of the Lonely, hand in hand and gasping in the musty, stale air of the Panopticon, Jon had thought about turning to Martin and saying it, taking advantage of what little time they had before everything inevitably began to catch up with them. He had been half-turned towards him, the words stuttering up his throat - _ there’s about a seventy percent chance that we’re going to die in the next few hours, so I just wanted to tell you that I love you, present tense, future tense, forever, probably - _ but then Basira had stumbled in, covered in soot and blood, and time had started again.

After that, there never seemed to be a good time. There were always hunters to watch out for, friends to find, bags to pack, and before Jon had quite caught his breath, he and Martin were being shoved in Georgie’s old sudan, being texted clipped, efficient instructions from Basira, driving out of London, into Scotland.

And- here they were, weeks away from the Lonely, and Jon still hasn’t _ said _ anything.

Nevermind that driving into Scotland with Martin felt like they were the protagonists of a Regency novel, running away to elope under the dead of night. Nevermind that Martin had reached out for Jon a dozen times, making sure that he was real, and Jon had reached right back. Nevermind that Jon had almost ran them off the road because he’d been driven to distraction by staring at Martin, still breathtaking in his very presence.

Nevermind that Jon had to swallow the words every other sentence - “It’s late, Martin, we should stay somewhere for the night,” _ I love you _ . “Would you rather have Chinese or Indian?” _ I love you _ . “Martin- wake up, I’m right here, we’re okay-” _ the world might be ending, and I’m in love with you. _

Sometimes, catching Martin’s eyes in the corners of his peripheries, he wonders if he’d somehow transmitted his thoughts to Martin’s, the way Elias could. He’s never worked up the courage to ask, and it leaves a sick feeling in his stomach. He wants to tell Martin, but not like that. He wants to be brave, for once, the way Martin is. The way he always has been.

* * *

The ‘safehouse’ is apparently Daisy’s codeword for cottage, because that’s exactly what they pull up to, once they’ve followed the GPS to their destination.

“This is...” Martin’s nose scrunches in confusion. “Cute.”

He sounds bewildered, and Jon doesn’t blame him. The cottage looks like it could have been built from fairytale blueprints, every inch charmingly rustic. Jon squints at it, not sure he wants to get out of the car. There’s something deeply unsettling about a place so...welcoming, after years of running in and out of places that almost exclusively were out to kill him, specifically.

Martin seems equally disturbed at the charm of the house. “Should we...check with Basira?” he asks, hopefully. “Maybe we got the wrong place?”

Jon somehow doubts it, but he dutifully takes a picture of the place with his cell, tries to send it. Frowns.

“No signal,” he says. Martin furrows his brows.

“That’s...suspicious?”

“Not if you wanted a place that was beyond surveillance,” Jon points out, though he rather thinks that disrupting some signals isn’t going to help them out overly much in the face of a literal omniscient immortal. Still, it’s the thought that counts.

Martin lifts his hand, hovers it over the handle of the door. Sighs. “I suppose if it were a trap, it wouldn’t matter much if we were in the car or out,” he mutters, and opens the door.

On that cheery note, Jon gets out of the car himself. The two of them get their bags from the trunk, sneaking suspicious looks towards the cottage the entire time. Martin not-so-subtly positions himself to cover Jon as they walk up to the door, and they look at each other - Jon opens his mouth, closes it, because he’s a _ coward _ \- before opening the door.

It’s...nice. A little dusty, clearly vacant for a good while, but- it’s normal. Ordinary. Jon looks around. “No tape recorders,” he comments, and it speaks to their lives that he and Martin both instantly relax at the confirmation.

“Okay, that’s- that’s good,” Jon says, mostly to himself. He turns to Martin, who’s already looking back at him. “I suppose we should get ourselves settled in?”

Martin nods. “Sounds good,” he says, and smiles. “Didn’t peg Daisy as the Disney type.”

“Like you can talk,” Jon retorts lightly. “You and your aesthetic tape recorders-”

“Your _ job _revolves around those tape recorders-”

“Not anymore,” Jon points out, and they both grin at each other for a moment. _ I love you _, Jon thinks again, but the words still hang in his throat, unsaid. 

* * *

“Um, Jon?”

Jon blinks at Martin, who’d gone upstairs to put away their bags while he’d checked the cabinets for any nonperishables that Daisy left. “What?”

“There’s-” Martin’s voice is strangled. “Um.”

Jon feels a thread of worry work its way through his body, and his climb up the stairs is quick enough to leave him a little breathless when he reaches Martin. “What’s wrong?” he asks, and Martin just makes another noise, somewhere between a sigh and a warble, and waves a hand into the room he’s standing at the door of.

“There’s only one bed,” Martin says, sounding slightly more composed. 

Jon blinks at him, confused. “That’s the typical layout of a bedroom, Martin.”

Martin stares at him, and Jon isn’t sure what he’s trying to communicate with his eyebrows, except that it’s exceptionally verbose.

“Jon,” he says eventually, exasperated. “This is the _ only bedroom _ , and there’s _ one bed _.”

Jon blinks, considers, wonders if he fell asleep behind the wheel.

“I- there’s only one bedroom?” his words come out on autopilot, and he’s not sure what he sounds like, but it can’t be anything good. “That seems short-sighted of Daisy.”

“I mean, she probably had this place ready for her and Basira,” Martin says, as if that explained anything. At Jon’s blank look, his face turns incredulous. “Jon- you know that they’re together, right?”

“Sorry, _ what _?”

Martin looks even more incredulous. “They were together from the beginning!” he says, and he almost sounds like he’s about to laugh, which is nice. Somebody should be gaining joy from this situation. “Are you seriously saying you haven’t noticed?”

“I’m not- privy to office gossip,” Jon flushes, remembers Melanie and Georgie, and the first time he heard Basira say _ “is he and Jon-” _about Martin, an impossibly long time ago. “It’s never been relevant-”

“Come _ on _ , Jon,” Martin says. “Nobody’s _ that _oblivious.”

“I’m not exactly an expert in the art of relationships,” Jon snaps, before he can think about it. He flinches, right after. “Shit, sorry-”

Martin touches his shoulder. “No, that was a shit thing for me to say,” his words are quick, as if he were afraid that Jon would run away. “Melanie told me- well, I mean- it’s fine.”

Jon almost asks, but he doesn’t think he has the mental wherewithal to go through that conversation. “Right,” he coughs. Changes the topic. “Well- I can take the couch.” 

“No way,” Martin’s already shaking his head. “Jon, your back is _ actually going to atrophy _, don’t be ridiculous. I can take the couch-”

Jon frowns. “I’m shorter,” he points out. “It’ll be easier for me to fit.”

“That doesn’t mean you’ll fit _ well _!” Martin exclaims. “Look, Jon, it’s fine, if I can’t fit, I’ll take the floor. I was a high school dropout, it’s not like I haven’t done my fair share of sleeping wherever I possibly could. It’s fine, alright? I can-”

“I mean- we could share.” Jon regrets the words as soon as they escape, even moreso when Martin’s words screech to a stop, his eyes growing huge behind his glasses.

“I,” he says. There’s a flush growing from his collar, and Jon determinedly does not look away from his face. In for a penny, in for a pound. “Jon?”

“We could share,” Jon says. “The bed’s plenty big, and, well, if we’re going to stay here, it’s not fair for one of us to stay on the couch.” he pauses, and rushes on when Martin still seems incapable of responding. “I mean, if you’re amenable- of course, I’m not going to _ force _ you-”

“No!” Martin yelps, and Jon has a moment of abject horror before he corrects himself. “I mean- yes! Or, uh, I’m- yeah. That’s fine. If you’re fine with it.”

“I’m fine with it,” Jon says, and hopes desperately that if he says it hard enough, it’ll be true.

* * *

It isn’t. Jon is the opposite of fine. Jon is an _ idiot _.

Martin is a long line of tension behind him, radiating warmth. They’re not touching, but Jon feels like they might as well be, every single nerve along his back sharp with awareness. He’s absolutely sure neither of them are asleep.

After a few agonizing minutes of this, Jon hisses out a breath. “Oh, for _ god’s sake- _”

“Jon?” by the time Jon’s turned himself around, Martin’s already looking back at him, concerned.

“This is ridiculous,” Jon informs him and also his own, stupid heart. “Come here.”

Martin stares at him, eyes even brighter without his glasses. “I...already am?”

Jon scoffs. “Not- _ here, _” he says, and shoves himself around Martin’s back.

“_ Jon _ ?” Martin makes a sound of alarm, trailing off into something strangled. “What are you _ doing _?”

“Cuddling,” Jon informs him matter-of-factly. “At least, I’m fairly sure I am. It’s been a while, I admit-”

“Oh my god, how are you _ like _this,” Martin garbles out. Jon presses his face into the soft flannel of Martin’s back in response, knowing that any words of his own at this point would just give him away. The fabric under his face is soft and skin-warm, and smells faintly of something cool. Some part of Jon thinks that this isn’t quite right, somehow, that something’s missing. It takes him a moment to realise that it’s the scent of tea, the association that Jon had grown accustomed to missing from his skin. He isn’t sure when he’d memorised the scent of Martin, before, but it’s there, inalienable.

Martin is still tense under Jon, the curves of his body unnervingly still.

“Go to sleep, Martin,” Jon says into his back, and doesn’t fall asleep until the body beside his slowly relaxes, until his breathing goes slow and soft.

_ I love you _, he mouths, when he’s sure that Martin’s asleep. He holds him a little tighter, closes his eyes, and promises himself that he’ll tell him when the right time comes.

* * *

Except the right time never does come.

Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that it’s _ always _ the right time, and Jon can’t decide when it’s the _ rightest _ time. Is it when they stir awake in the morning, awkwardly tucked together in an almost uncomfortable way? Is it when Martin carefully takes out all of the cans Daisy’d squirreled away, arranging and rearranging them until he finds an order he likes, but Jon can’t possibly understand? Is it carefully cleaning the cottage together, the quiet comfortable instead of strained? Is it when Martin comes back from calling Basira from the village, eyes bright with all the little things he saw and wanted to share with Jon?

Every moment feels at once perfect and not quite right, and it’s driving Jon _ insane _. He can almost imagine Georgie calling him a moron, and she’d be absolutely right.

“I’ve been a moron,” Jon informs Martin, hands pressed against the kitchen counter and having a mild crisis, when he comes back from buying groceries that day. Martin blinks at him, and puts the bags on the dining table.

“What did you do,” Martin says, nonplussed and a little tense. There’s something in his body language that tells Jon that if he’d told him that he had accidentally Beholded someone, or somehow gave away their location, Martin would already have a plan ready to protect them- to protect _ him _. The thought knocks Jon off-kilter for a moment, something he’d known but had never seemed as large to him as it did in this moment.

He takes his palms off of the counter, winds his way around and towards Martin. “Nothing,” he replies, drawing near. “That’s the problem, actually.”

“What-” Martin’s brows furrow, and Jon takes a moment to make sure that nothing’s in his hands before he tugs him in by the collar and kisses him firmly.

For a long, terrifying moment, Martin is still underneath him. And then, all at once, he’s _ not _ . His hands come up to Jon’s face, and Jon can’t help but lean into them. Martin’s lips are soft over his, as if he were waiting for Jon to fall away, and Jon tugs him in closer, presses his own lips more firmly against Martin’s, trying to tell him _ I’m here, I’m staying, _ with every touch.

He doesn’t know how long it takes before they pull apart, both out of breath and flushed.

“That-” Martin falters. “Jon, what-”

“I love you,” Jon tells him, the words a relief as they finally burst out. “I’ve been trying to tell you-”

“_ When _?”

“- but I was, quite bad at it, to be honest.” Jon smiles, a little self-deprecating, revelling in the way that Martin’s eyes crinkle up slightly, confusion melting into something like joy.

“Oh,” Martin says, voice wobbling. “I love you too. Of course I do.”

Jon laughs a little, though it comes out like a sigh of relief. “That’s good,” he breathes out. “It would’ve been- quite awkward, if you didn’t.”

Martin laughs and holds Jon tighter, the way he will when they’re in bed that night, the way he will every night after that, for as long as he can. Jon smiles into Martin’s arms, and holds him back.

**Author's Note:**

> hmu at [@tweetsongs](https://tweetsongs.tumblr.com) on tumblr to cry some more about jm


End file.
